Stitches and Thrills

When the Breien! (Knitting!) exhibit at the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden opened I immediately wanted to jump on a train to the far north. But..hold it... They announced there would be a competition for knitted animal hats! Entries before February 29th 2016, and a selection will be on display for 2 months from April. So I will go later this year, when the hats are in the museum, hoping mine will be among them. :-) (Dutch readers: so you can still enter the Beestenboel competition!) In 2003, when I got back into knitting after decades of non-knitting it all started by making kitty hats as Miss Minoes on Etsy to raise money for the Stevenshage animal shelter in Leiden. Some other animals have popped up in that parade: a bunny , a donkey, a mouse and even a cow. So, having made so many hats with ears already, I really wanted to approach this from another angle. I made a secret Pinterest board (now public) to find the elements I wanted in my design. Follow Ama's...

"Usually I am not that affected by a celebrity's death" is a phrase that came up in some responses to David Bowie passing away. When it hit the news on Monday, it left me lost for words for a while as well. As one does nowadays it is comforting to have so many friends so close at hand through social media and to share our emotions. And my mum and brother send me text-massages, so sweet. It became evident that for a lot of people this was also so much more than a famous person dying. There have been other singers that truly touched my heart who've passed away. And usually I thought "ah, that is very sad" and played some songs. But this time it was different. For family and friends a death leaves a giant hole. No more moments to talk with someone, to hold someone. But why are we so affected by losing someone we never even met in real life? Since the release of The Next Day and seeing the "David Bowie Is" exhibit in London Bowie had been mor...

Introduced in 2014 it became quite the trend in 2015: Arm knitting. Here's the most used video tutorial. Things to keep in mind: - The first time you arm knit you might take 1 or 2 hours to make a scarf. Once you get the hang of it, it goes a lot quicker. - Take a bathroom break before you cast on. Not very handy to bring all that knitting to the toilet!

Having been at a Twin Peaks party a couple of weeks ago I realized that my life was missing a log pillow. (The hostess of the party had one!) So I was thrilled to find the free log crochet pattern on the Club Geluk website ! The pattern is in Dutch, but I will explain some adaptation I made, and as a bonus: how to make it into a pillow. I used 100 grams of light brown yarn (it was actually a variation yarn, but that worked well). 50 grams of beige and 50 grams of dark brown yarn. All yarn DK / light worsted (usual advice would be needle size 4). I used a crochet needle 3.5 mm to get a close firm stitch. The recommended 43 chain stitches (light brown yarn) cast on gave me a circle of 9 1/2 cm diameter. I closed the circle and knitted 55 rows to get a 39 cm tube. I did make a small change to the pattern in the 2 end circles of the log (beige yarn). As recommended I did cast on 8 stitches in a magic circle. And then increasing each round following in the pattern. However: I did...

Last winter the Dutch shopping chain HEMA used a lot of knitted items in their holiday season promotions. There were knitted champagne bottles, a cat, food, yes, even a ham. All this was knitted by Club Geluk (= Club Happiness). On their website the actual items are for sale, but also Christmas NYE cards and a spicy calender. But most of all, a big hooray for the Dutch knitters, the knitting patterns are now available in a book: Club Geluk Boek I didn't get the book yet, but a friend of me bought it and confirmed it was full of patterns that were unlike anything she had seen before. On the Club Geluk website you can also find free crochet patterns (in Dutch). Among those a crochet log. The pattern suggests using a cardboard roll as filling. But I made a pillow filling for it. Which will be DIY December Day 9, otherwise I'll never catch up ;-)

More mittens to make! You just got to love these Meow Mitts by TinyOwlKnitsPatterns . I know I do =^x^= Pattern available in her Etsy shop. Pattern: Meow Mitts by TinyOwlKnitsPatterns And if you don't like cats - hey wait, what are you doing on this blog then? -  she also sells patterns with bunnies, birds and butterflies, among others.

The free pattern for these fingerless gloves is available on the blog Knitting And So On . Aren't they amazing? I have never seen anything like it. I can't wait to knit them! Free pattern on Knitting and so on